The Billionaire and his Blood-Bride

Chapter Three: A Name Buried in Silence

Grey hated mirrors.

There was one directly across from him in the dark-paneled study, tall and antique, the kind that made every shadow behind you look like a figure waiting to strike. His reflection stared back at him, hollow-eyed and stiff, a man wearing the life of a stranger.

He loosened the buttons on his cuffs and turned away from the glass.

Across the room, flames flickered in the hearth, dancing around iron logs that hadn’t truly warmed this place in years. The fire was just for show. Like everything else in this house.

He poured a glass of scotch. Didn’t drink it.

The meeting with her—Lana—had been shorter than expected, but it had shaken him more than he wanted to admit. She was exactly like the girl in the painting. Not similar. Not close. Identical.

Down to the scar at the edge of her left brow, just beneath the hairline. He hadn’t noticed it immediately. But now he couldn’t unsee it.

And the name.

Alana.

He remembered whispering it, once. Before his name was ever Grey. Before he’d been shipped off to Europe with nothing but a new passport and a fabricated birth certificate.

He stared into the fire, jaw tight. His adoptive parents—if he could even call them that—had been loyal to the Thompsons. Devoted, even. They followed the family’s orders like scripture. And the first rule had always been the same:

Do not ask about your past.

So he never did.

Until now.

He’d always suspected something was off. Always felt like a puzzle with one missing corner. And now, that corner was standing upstairs with his face and his eyes and a name neither of them had chosen.

He took a breath and finally sipped the scotch.

The arranged marriage had been sprung on him weeks ago, in a letter much like Lana’s. Cold. Precise. Final. The contract had existed long before his knowledge of it, inked into estate records by “guardians” he’d never met. And the reason for it? Vague.

To preserve the legacy of the Thompson bloodline.

To fulfill an agreement made long ago.

To maintain the balance of assets and heirs.

Grey had scoffed at it, of course. He didn’t need another name, another title, or another stranger in his life.

But now?

Now he wasn’t sure the marriage had been about business at all.

Maybe it had never been about money or power or legacy.

Maybe it had been a leash.

A way to control them both.

He pulled a file from the drawer beside the fireplace—thin, bound in leather, unmarked. Inside were only four pages, and none of them gave real answers. A single photograph of Lana taken weeks ago, grainy and distant, with the word “CONFIRMED” stamped underneath.

Confirmed what?

He flipped to the final page. It was a birth certificate, partially redacted. Father: Classified. Mother: Deceased. Name: Alana Rose Thompson. Twin Brother: [Redacted].

He stared at the black bar across his own name.

Someone had tried to erase them both. Separate them. Bury their bloodline beneath a web of contracts and secrecy.

But why?

And why reunite them now?

He turned the certificate over and noticed, for the first time, a hand-scribbled note in the corner. Faded. Nearly gone.

“Only together will they remember.”

The room felt colder.

He dropped the paper and stood, pacing toward the bookshelf. His reflection caught in the mirror again—him, and something behind him that disappeared the moment he turned around.

He checked the study doors. Still locked.

Still alone.

Then why did it feel like someone else was in the room?

He pulled open another drawer—older records, letters from his adoptive father, ledgers detailing every “donation” made by the Thompsons to their handlers over the years. Every move Grey had made, every school, every country, every hospital visit—tracked. Curated.

Lana’s file was thinner. She’d lived a fractured life. Orphanages. Shelters. Nothing stable. And yet—she’d survived. Like him.

Someone had kept them alive… separately.

Someone had pulled strings to keep them apart.

He exhaled slowly, then looked back toward the fire.

How long until she started remembering?

Would the estate itself trigger something?

The portraits? The wing she’d been placed in?

Or would she fight it—fight him—until it was too late?

A knock rattled the study door.

Sharp. Purposeful.

He froze.

No one ever knocked at this hour.

He crossed the room and cracked the door open.

It wasn’t a servant.

It was the butler. Expression unreadable.

“What is it?” Grey asked, voice low.

“Apologies, sir. But Miss Rey has requested to speak with you. Immediately.”

Grey’s pulse ticked faster.

“What happened?”

“She says she saw something in her mirror, sir.”

The butler’s mouth twitched—barely. Not fear. Not doubt. Something closer to recognition.

Grey straightened.

“She’s not safe alone in that room,” the butler added softly. “Not tonight.”

Grey didn’t ask why.

He didn’t need to.

He turned, grabbed the file from the desk, and followed the butler down the dark hall, his footsteps echoing against centuries-old stone.

Because if she was starting to see what he feared…

Then something buried was trying to rise again.